The article addresses the controversial issue of the formation of "biblical Israel" in biblical historiography. It begins by presenting the political-cultural struggle between Assyria and Babylonia in the second and first millennia BCE, in part over
the question of ownership of the cultural patrimony of ancient Mesopotamia. It goes on to examine relations between Judah and Israel and compares them to those between Assyria and Babylonia. It then suggests that the adoption of the Israelite
identity by Judah, which took place during the reign of Josiah as part in his cultic reform, was motivated by the desire to take possession of the highly prestigious heritage of Israel, which had remained vacant since that kingdom’s annexation by
Assyria in 720 BCE.

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THE ISRAELITE-JUDAHITE STRUGGLE
I have already written a detailed criticism of Daviesâ€™ premise that
the district of Benjamin was incorporated into the Kingdom of Israel
at some point during the 9th or 8th centuries 13. In point of fact, the
territory of Judah did encompass the district of Benjamin â€” with the
exception of the Jericho-Gilgal-Michmash area â€” throughout the
First Temple period. The hypothesis that a comprehensive
Benjaminite historical work with a northern Israelite orientation pre-
dated the Deuteronomistic History has no evidential foundation.
Moreover, the notion that after the fall of the First Temple, a
Benjaminite author would depict the history of Israel from a northern
Israelite perspective is unlikely. Benjamin was a Judahite district,
and the outlook of its inhabitants was clearly Judahite, not Israelite.
Axel Knauf has suggested that the district of Benjamin,
including the city of Bethel, was handed over to Judah by Assyria
during the reign of Manasseh as a reward for his long-standing
loyalty, and that the cultic centre at Bethel was the means by which
Israelite traditions were channelled to Judah 14. However, this
hypothesis, too, is not supported by the textual evidence 15.
Furthermore, it is highly unlikely that an Assyrian king would have
detached such an important administrative and cultic centre from his
territory and assign it to a vassal kingdom. The area of Bethel was
annexed to the Kingdom of Judah only following the Assyrian
withdrawal from Palestine, probably in the 620s BCE. If Bethel is
indeed the missing link in the transmission of Israelite traditions to
the kingdom of Judah, its incorporation into the kingdom did not
take place prior to King Josiahâ€™s reign (see below).
Might the common worship of the same national god account by
itself for the creation of a detailed historical composition of an
ethnic-religious entity called â€œIsraelâ€ that had supposedly been born
at the dawn of history and had functioned without significant
internal change up until that time? Since at no time before the
Hasmonaean period were the inhabitants of the two kingdoms ever
united in a single national entity, the answer is clearly negative. To
N. NAâ€™AMAN, â€œSaul, Benjamin and the Emergence of Biblical Israelâ€,
13
ZAW 121 (2009) 216-224.
E.A. KNAUF, â€œBethel: The Israelite Impact on Judean Language and
14
Literature â€, Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period (eds. O. LIPSCHITS â€“
M. OEMING) (Winona Lake, IN 2006) 295-297, 314-316.
NAâ€™AMAN, â€œSaulâ€, 339.
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